


Summer Thaw

by burglebezzlement



Category: Lumberjanes
Genre: Backstory, F/F, Forests, Reconciliation, Ridiculous Badge Names, Treasure Hunting, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-16 01:48:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13043997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/burglebezzlement/pseuds/burglebezzlement
Summary: Rosie has always hoped Abigail might come back, one day. What she didn't dare hope for was future plans.





	Summer Thaw

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lalalalalawhy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lalalalalawhy/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide! I couldn’t resist a request for Rosie/Abigail. :D
> 
> For those who may or may not be keeping up with the new issues that have just come out: This fic contains no spoilers for Issues #41-44, but can also be read as taking place after that storyline.

The Scoutmaster’s grove is silent, green, filled with mysteries. In many ways, it’s the heart of the Lumberjanes camp. The Lumberjanes experience. The forest will always take you in, but it asks things of you.

It’s also an excellent place to practice your axe form.

The mist over the lake is just breaking, and the rising sun glints off the sharpened edge of Rosie’s axe as she spins from First Defense into Second Defense, her axe whirling around her head. She’s been practicing her axe form for as long as she’s been a Lumberjane. Nellie always preferred ranged weapons — there was a lot of archery back when she ran the camp — but one of the few flexible parts of her curriculum was fighting. She saw the wisdom in letting each Lumberjane choose her own primary weapon.

“A blunt instrument,” Nellie had said to her, one afternoon, watching Rosie and Abigail spar with wooden practice weapons. “That’s what you are.”

Rosie used to shrink down into herself at that kind of criticism. Not any more. Now she accepts herself for who she is — and what she can do. Her axe can achieve precision that would make a stiletto-wielder weep.

She shifts into the attacking forms, axe whirling in the light. She can feel someone there, watching her, just at the edge of the grove, the space that divides the forest from a clearing.

Rosie speeds up, shifting through her forms in a dizzying display of axe-based virtuosity. There’s nothing wrong with showing her Scouts what hard work and dedication can do.

It’s probably the Roanokes. Again. She’s been wondering when they’d find the entrance to the dwarven cavern hidden beneath the mess hall. Or it might be Jen, coming to tell her Roanoke Cabin has set off on another adventure.

It’s not until she stops, dripping with sweat and flushed with endorphins, that she realizes who’s watching.

Abigail steps out from the shadow of a tree. 

Rosie’s world tilts, and then she’s sinking her axe into a stump and rushing forward to hug Abigail. Her hair still smells like eucalyptus and adventure, like she’s everything young Rosie wanted in her life, wanted —

“It’s good to see you too,” Abigail mumbles, her mouth against Rosie’s shoulder, and Rosie remembers that she’s soaking with sweat and lets Abigail go. She takes a step back.

She can’t stop herself from asking. “Why did you come back?” 

Abigail looks away. “I had a lot of time after I broke my arm,” she says. “A lot of time to think. A lot of time to read.”

She hands a book to Rosie. 

“The Lumberjanes Handbook?”

Abigail nods. “I said nothing had changed. This book made me realize I was wrong.”

Rosie flips the book open. Ripley’s signature is inside the front cover, in her unsteady, looping hand. She’s got a list of badges she’s earned. There’s also a badge goals list, written in a neater hand that Rosie suspects is April’s.

“One of your girls left it behind,” Abigail says. “Left open to the page on detecting hidden compartments and passageways, by the way.”

Rosie smiles. “The Undercover Architect badge. I remember when we earned that one. We must have found eighteen secret compartments in that mansion.”

“They told me we found one nobody had ever found before,” Abigail says. “Not that they let us keep the treasure. Whatever happened to that old pile, anyway?”

“Long story,” Rosie says. “Some people from the city bought it, and their daughter’s living there now.”

Abigail raises an eyebrow. “Lumberjane?” Meaning: _Does she know about the forest? Can she handle it?_

“She’ll do,” Rosie says, because it’s easier than explaining the strangest sixteenth birthday party she ever attended.

Abigail brushes her fingers over Ripley’s badge list. “Cake decorating, ballroom dance — I should have trusted you, Rosie. I should have known you’d never put campers through what she put us through.”

A silence falls between them. It would have been companionable, once upon a time, back when they were young and every path held a new adventure. The grove smells green, like growing things, and there’s birdsong from the bushes. 

“I didn’t just come to return the book,” Abigail says. “That too, but — I wanted you to know. I found the lost treasure of Miranda Murray.”

Rosie’s jaw drops open. “Really?” 

She hasn’t heard that name in years. Hearing it takes her back, to nights in Dighton Cabin, huddled into their sleeping bags, reading Lumberjanes lore by the light of the dark lantern Abigail made in the weapons smithy. They had already earned their Hex Marks the Spot badges, and Nellie said it was a waste of time to keep reading, but the tales of mystery and treasure kept Rosie and Abigail entranced. 

Miranda Murray was one of the very first Lumberjanes. She spent her life finding treasure beyond imagining: the now-lost knowledge of magical civilizations, some now lost, some merely unseen for years. Her lost journals could make a cryptozoologist weep.

Nobody had seen the journals in years — not since Miranda went into the heart of the forest with an axe, a pack, and a plan to settle further on in. Rosie and Abigail always said they’d find them, one day, when they could finally explore the forest together.

“Are the journals everything we dreamed they were?” Rosie asks, now. “Did she really meet the Unicorn King?”

“I said I found them,” Abigail says. “I haven’t been able to retrieve them yet.” She looks down. “That’s why — I thought maybe —”

Rosie’s heart leaps. “Really?”

“We can’t go until the winter.” Abigail says it like she’s imagined saying these words before. “I know you have the campers, and you can’t leave in the summer. But when winter comes —”

Autumn’s onset is unpredictable in the forest. But if Rosie starts putting the word out along the Lumberjanes network now, she’s sure she can find a winter caretaker by winter-time, whenever that might arrive. 

“I can come,” she says. “But why winter?”

“Ashray Pond,” Abigail says, and Rosie furrows her brows.

She knows of the pond, a body of water hidden in the depths of the forest. It also isn’t a pond. It’s a lake — a deep one, guarded by water-spirits. Even the merwomyn avoid that lake. The water-spirits destroy every craft that touches the water, throwing the occupants back to the surrounding shores. 

“That can’t be,” Rosie says. Ashray Pond has an island at the center — a tiny island — but there’s no safe way to make it out there. “Not even a Lumberjane could get out to that island."

“Not in the summer,” Abigail says. “But in the winter, if we wait for a hard freeze?”

Rosie grins. “We can sail an ice boat right out to the island, over the ice and the water-spirits.” 

It’s a brilliant plan. An Abigail plan. Rosie’s missed having those in her life. 

“I’m in,” she says. 

Abigail smiles, and there’s another long moment. Rosie doesn’t want to break this one. She could stay here, smiling at Abigail —

“I have to go,” Abigail says. 

“Are you sure?” Rosie asks. “You could come back to camp for breakfast. Zodiac Cabin is working on their Rise and Dine badges. It’s sure to be tasty.”

“It’s still hard,” Abigail says, her eyes dark with memories. “Maybe some other time.” 

She steps closer to Rosie and kisses Rosie on the cheek, just next to her lips.

“I’ll see you around,” Abigail says. “And this winter —”

“It’s a plan.” Rosie meets Abigail’s eyes, thinking of the journals, of treasure. Adventuring together the way they’d always planned. Thinking of long, cold nights on the trail, just the two of them, curled up together in their tent for warmth.

Her campers want eternal summers. But for Rosie, winter can’t come soon enough.


End file.
